


i've got grief in my marrow (will you marry me still?)

by themoonfish



Series: Blinks of Light [3]
Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: But So is Philippa, F/F, Marriage is Hard Too, Michael is Dumb Sometimes, Post-Terra Firma, feelings are hard, integrated Philippa
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 04:28:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29164968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themoonfish/pseuds/themoonfish
Summary: A few years and one child into their marriage, Philippa has a realization that will either bring her and Michael closer than they've ever been before or completely rock the foundation of the marriage as they know it.
Relationships: Michael Burnham/Mirror Philippa Georgiou, Michael Burnham/Philippa Georgiou
Series: Blinks of Light [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2090766
Comments: 24
Kudos: 54





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> our favorite ladies, back at it again. 
> 
> this story is continuation of the Blinks of Light series that explores an established relationship between Michael and Philippa after the events of Terra Firma where the solution to Philippa's pesky temporal and spacial alignment issue is to naturally have the Guardian of Forever merge Captain Georgiou with The Emperor.
> 
> This chapter is a little (much?) shorter than the ones that will follow. Think of this as a fun teaser that will lead into much more emotionally complex, angsty, and yet humorous and appropriately fluffy times. The story is nearly completed because I'm finally learning from the errors of my ways!

_Would you believe_  
_She wants to keep_  
_The rest of me?_  
_The death of me_  
  
_I've got grief in my marrow_  
_Will you marry me still?_  
_I'm one of two on the straight and the narrow_  
_And I'm coming for you_

Thao Nguyen, "Marrow"

In the days following Philippa’s admittedly fraught and very sexually charged admission, Michael has been—distant. 

She’s antsy, never stands in one place too long, jumps at the chance to tackle the endless mind numbing tasks required of any parent of a young child. Their quarters have never been so spotless. Even the bulkheads are so shiny that if Philippa squints hard enough, she can make out her own dull reflection. 

The instant that anyone requests a private word or an extra hand in Engineering or even Sickbay, Michael disappears like a cloaked ship. If Philippa didn't know Michael just as intimately and deeply as she knew herself, she’d mistake this manic behavior for a second wind, a new lease on life even. But because she does know Michael, as intimately and deeply as she knows herself, she can recognize the behavior for what it is, _classic avoidance_.

Philippa tries, on multiple occasions, to engage Michael in real conversation, but the woman somehow manages to wriggle away at every opportune moment. 

Uri, bless her, is much too young to notice the subtle differences in her Ayah. As far as their daughter is concerned, Michael is there for each and every bath and bedtime and most meandering breakfast table conversations. Michael is just as attentive with Uri as ever. They spend afternoons on the holodeck together, visit Tilly in engineering, spontaneously rearrange the furniture in Michael’s office so the usage of space is more ‘efficacious for playtime.’ 

Whenever Michael brings Uri back to their quarters, the girl has a thousand and one stories to tell about the adventures they’ve been up to. Ayah is all Uri can talk about, how Ayah did this and how Ayah said that. It’s hero worship, plain and simple, and Philippa loves the fierceness with which Uri loves her other mother, loves the energy that Michael inspires in others. But when she can hardly get Michael to look at her without their daughter in the room, _it hurts_. Every night Philippa falls asleep glaring at the ceiling in their otherwise empty bed and every morning she wakes the same way, alone and with only the slightest indication that Michael had slept there at all.

The mornings after, they dance a delicate dance around each other, ordering teas and coffees and sippy cups full of milk and fruit juice, passing plates and utensils across the table, talking work schedules over Uri’s head. 

“I can take her today,” Michael says one morning after returning from Gamma shift looking like death warmed over. Philippa cuts her eyes suspiciously at the other woman before returning her attention to cutting Uri’s pancakes into little bite sized pieces. 

“You’ve been up all night Michael, surely you want to rest a little? I can comm someone to take over things here...” Philippa pauses to pull up a mental picture of the schedule she’s committed to memory of available babysitters. Today Adira, child prodigy, has made themselves available for an afternoon of kal-toh and human board games in the Mess Hall. Uri loves Adira, they’re the closest in age on board, and taking the engineering track to be like Adira and Ammi (before she was Emperor of an alternate universe) is Uri’s backup plan just in case replacing Uncle Hugh as CMO doesn’t work out.

“What about Adira, Angel? Would you like to spend the day with them?” 

On any other day Uri would clap her hands in delight but today their daughter looks pensively at the icy divide between her two mothers and frowns. 

“No.” She says petulantly and Philippa has to count to ten to keep from snapping at them both. 

It would seem that the average four year old _is_ much smarter than adults give them credit for. Either that or the girl really is a prodigy. God forbid she be an empath which, with two emotionally stunted mothers, would truly be a blessing and a curse. 

“No Adira?” Philippa asks patiently. 

“No.” Uri repeats slowly as though it’s Philippa who isn’t understanding. “No Adira. I want Ayah.” 

“I know love,” Philippa says reaching out to tuck a strand of hair behind Uri’s left ear, “but Ayah hasn’t slept all day. She was on duty helping Captain Saru while we were sleeping.” This schedule Michael is keeping these days, for whatever inane reason, is not sustainable. Not for Michael’s health and certainly not for their marriage. 

As Philippa cards her hands through Uri‘s hair, the girl looks at her parents quizzically, turning her head to the side in the time honored tradition of Vulcans everywhere attempting to determine if it’s worth calling inept human adults on their bullshit. It’s the same way Michael used to regard her those early days back on _Shenzhou_.

_One point for nurture over nature then._

Thankfully, their daughter is much more tactful at four than Michael ever was at twenty five. 

“Ayah is sleepy?” Uri asks looking directly at Philippa, because—nurture over nature again—part of Uri’s tactical genius is knowing who calls the shots in this family. 

But before Philippa can answer and narrowly redirect the tantrum Uri has already seriously considered throwing, Michael steam rolls right over the moment with an empty tired smile. 

“No! It’s fine, really. I’m fine Philippa. I can do it.” Philippa purses her lips in consternation but, in an uncharacteristic move, decides to save her comments for a later time when little ears aren’t around to hear her curse in fifteen different languages. 

“What about Ammi?” Uri says, this time directing her question at Michael. “She come?” The queer look that passes over Michael’s face is gone as soon as it appears. 

“Ammi is visiting Starfleet Command today.” Philippa says patiently tucking a napkin into the toddler’s shirt. She’s on another one of her ‘missions.’ The kind she can’t even talk about with Michael, or at least the kind she’s not supposed to tell Michael about, but ultimately recounts in the dark of their bedroom a few weeks after she’s had time to pour over them and tuck them into a neatly compartmentalized box that she stores in the back of her mind with all the other skeletons in her closet. 

“No Ammi?” Uri frowns again, looking forlornly at Philippa who is drizzling a hint of maple syrup over the pancakes. Normally she wouldn’t spoil Uri with such a sugary breakfast, but the emotional rollercoaster Michael’s put them all on has her feeling more than a little indulgent. It also doesn’t hurt that she’ll be lightyears away when the worst of the sugar rush hits.

Motherhood may have softened her edges some, but it hasn’t stopped her from being diabolical. 

“Hey bud, we’re still gonna have a fun time together aren’t we?” Michael tries to sound enthusiastic but it doesn’t quite pull it off as well as she thinks she does. Uri’s eyes dart back and forth between her parents, filling with tears. 

Growing up as the highly aware child of two high profile parents on the most valuable starship in the fleet, Uri has learned to accept her mothers’ busy schedules as a fact of life. Philippa isn’t one for tolerating tantrums, not those of her crew, her subjects, Starfleet Command, and especially not her own daughter. But apparently, she’s begun to tolerate tantrums from her own wife, so how could she possibly expect to keep order in her own home?

The tension headache forming behind her eyes is going to be massive and already, the hitches in Uri’s breath make her long for the carte blanche ability of a toddler to burst into tears at the drop of a hyperspanner and get away with it. She’s tempted to change back into a nightgown and spend the day in bed with Uri while relegating Michael to the couch inside their quarters, but someone has to be the adult in this family. 

Swallowing heavily, Philippa slides the freshly cut pancakes in front of her daughter and hands her a tiny color changing fork. The appearance of food temporarily stays their executions. Uri is now engaged in a game of trying to stuff as much of her breakfast in her mouth as possible before the fork completes a full cycle of flashing colors. 

“Not so quickly my sweet.” Philippa smiles wanly and tickles the underside of the toddler’s chin. Uri graces her mother with a quick grin before more carefully, though no less enthusiastically, digging back into her pancakes. 

“You’re not eating?” Michael asks, dispassionately swirling the bland serving of plomeek broth around in her bowl. Plomeek is Michael’s favorite, terribly boring Vulcan breakfast and the thought that anything could be eating Michael up so badly from the inside that she can’t even palate the simple soup turns Philippa cold. She dumps her folded napkin on the table and tiredly pushes back her chair. Suddenly, the fight has left her. There’s no honor in it when Michael won’t fight her back, and even less so when their daughter is happily munching away on her breakfast.

“No,” Philippa says standing from the table, “it seems I’ve lost my appetite.” When a hurt look passes over Michael’s face, Philippa finds no pleasure in it, just a deep sadness of her own. Heading to the door, she reaches for her jacket and slips her feet into her boots. Years of command experience make it easy to mindlessly prepare for away missions and red alerts at a moments notice. She doesn’t need to acknowledge all these _feelings_ when she can get by on autopilot. 

“Ammi?” Uri calls for attention, tapping her cheek suggestively. It’s her way of telling Philippa that she has forgotten something.

“How silly of me.” She murmurs before pressing a quick kiss to both of Uri’s cheeks and the tip of the girl’s nose, for good measure. Uri should be pleased but once again, she regards Philippa in that unnerving childlike way.

“Ayah?” Uri asks matter of factly, pointing across the table. 

So maybe Philippa hadn’t forgotten so much as she had actively tried to avoid this part of their morning routine. Sadly, she’s been under-minded by her own daughter. _Again_. 

For the first time in a long time, Philippa finds herself at a total loss as to what to do next. She looks to Michael for help before realizing looking to Michael for help is exactly what she was avoiding in the first place. She could kick herself, _she is kicking herself._ Her cheeks flush in embarrassment and she flounders until Michael inevitably comes to her rescue as she always does.

“Go.” The other woman says softly. “We’ll be fine here, won’t we Uri?” Uri looks at Michael doubtfully but like her younger mother, Uri is fiercely protective of Philippa and her mood. 

Uri jumps down from her chair and runs straight into Philippa’s knees. The older woman can’t resist the urge to lift the girl into her arms and take a deep breath of the cloyingly sweet baby smell Uri still exudes in the mornings. She’ll miss moments like these when Uri is older and she won’t be a baby Philippa can throw up on her hip anymore.

Thinking on her feet she presses a flurry of kisses to Uri’s face and then pauses to whisper in the girl’s ear. 

“This last one is for Ayah, but I’m running late so you’ll have to promise you’ll give it to her for me, ok?” Uri smiles determinedly and Philippa plants a big wet kiss on her cheek before setting the girl back on to the ground.

“Goodbye my loves.” Philippa waves, taking one last look at both of her girls before she heads out. She may be upset, but she’s never left their quarters without saying goodbye. Life in Starfleet is tenuous, even this far into the future. Should she not return from this mission, she would hate for everyone’s last memory of her to be that of some ridiculous feud. Her eyes sting involuntarily as she steps through the threshold of the door.

“See you soon Ammi?” Uri says inching forward to peer out the door. 

“Very soon.” Philippa turns back to assure her. 

After tearing herself away, she walks to the end of the hall to prepare for transport when she realizes that Uri must have accidentally tripped the mechanism on the door to their quarters. The normally quiet corridor is filled with the sounds of someone dutifully clearing away breakfast while a toddler chats animatedly in the background. 

“Uh oh.” Uri says admonishingly.

“Uh oh? Uh oh what?” Michael’s more distant voice chimes in. 

“Uh oh, Ayah’s in big trouble, _uh oh_.”

Philippa allows herself a small smile as she enters in her coordinates and feels the tell tale tingle of the 32nd century transporters. 

Another point for nurture over nature. This time, in her favor. Though she finds it curious that the last thing she should hear is Michael’s quiet admission.

“Yeah buddy, I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Up: Philippa and Hugh catch up over "Girls' Night," and Philippa finally dishes about her 'tiff' with Michael.
> 
> _“Are you finally going to tell me what the hell has been going on between the two of you?” He whispers in a valiant attempt to respect her privacy, even though she’s already aware that short of expressly invoking Doctor-Patient confidentiality, there is hardly a thing that goes on that Hugh doesn’t share with his husband. She and Michael are the same way, after all._
> 
> _“Yes.” Philippa wiggles her eyebrows at him, hoping to entice him into leaving his quarters sooner rather than later. “Every sordid detail.”_


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Philippa dishes to her BFF and unofficial ship’s counselor Dr. Hugh Culber over a bottle of 100% organic tequila. Featuring multiple stories inside of a story and heavy lime, limón?
> 
> Rated heavy M? E? Probably E??

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was truly a joy to write. I can’t imagine a world in which Hugh and Philippa don’t end up being besties, tbh. Pure chaotic energy that I live for, with some solid love, support, and life experience thrown in there.

“How many times do I have to tell you that this is the 23rd century?” Hugh says from his living room couch, shoving his feet into his off duty boots. There are at least twenty different reasons she gets along with the chief medical officer of the Discovery and the fact that Hugh is as well dressed as her is at least three of them. It’s difficult being the only well dressed person everywhere she goes. 

“It’s the 32nd century,” Philippa corrects distractedly, leaning against the bulkhead closest to the door with her arms crossed firmly over her chest. 

“Wow, still getting used to that.” Hugh sighs, lifting off of the couch to make his way over to a mirror, checking his look for a final time and adjusting the collar of shirt once more for good measure.

“Ha,” Philippa says glancing down at her manicure in her attempt to manufacture a feeling of cool disinterest, “you and everybody else on this ship.” No matter how long they’ve been here, she’s not sure they’ll ever truly be used to it.

“Touché.” Hugh says with a rueful smile. “Now pass me my jacket will you?” 

As many times as she’s now been in these quarters, she’s never felt very comfortable in them. Hugh, for his part, has always been a perfect host. But there is something about being the combination of a depraved (ex) war criminal, a walking and talking apparition of a holy Starfleet ghost, and the product of a Time God’s giddy experiment that makes Philippa just the slightest bit uncomfortable outside the sanctity of her quarters. 

Even still, Hugh is her closest friend and ally. He’s more than that to her. _He’s family_. So, she knows exactly what jacket he’s referring to and she lifts it off the hook without complaint or theatrics. The sooner they move on from here the sooner Philippa will be able to work through this dilemma that has been eating away at her—and dare she say it without being dramatic— _her marriage_.

Hugh takes the jacket with a gracious nod and pulls it on in one fluid motion.

“Now where were we again?” He asks, running a quick hand over his figure. It occurs to Philippa, not for the first time since, that Hugh in his complete outfit, is quite the catch. It would be a shame that he was monogamous and quite taken with playing for the other team if the same couldn’t be said for herself. Then again, as Hugh so loved to remind her, humanoid sexuality is much more fluid than her barbs seem to acknowledge. Philippa knows this of course, being three different women with various different _inclinations_ makes her more knowledgeable of this fact than most. In the early days it seemed like the only thing they could all agree on was Michael Burnham, but even that was a struggle. It wasn’t so much about whether or not to make the move, but the endless and exhausting concerns about when, where, and how to elevate their previously _complicated_ relationship to the next level. All in all, the spoils had been well worth the hassle, but the initial process of seduction had been arduous at best. So much so, that Michael ended up doing most of the heavy lifting while the Captain and the Emperor both had been given to foolish bouts of noble sacrifice.

Nowadays, she’s taken to seeing herself as a more integrated being with the ability to allow one of her personalities to step backwards or forwards as the circumstances merit. The more she accepts the many competing impulses head on, the more she can admit to herself the myriad ways she’s changed and stayed exactly the same. If her knowledge of both universes has taught her anything, it’s that the people in them were never so different as were the rules of engagement. Michael’s decades long meditation practice has been helpful on that front. Through their sessions, Philippa has come to terms with who she is. It’s often the others, the past members of her crew that struggle the most. Who is she to them?

With Hugh, things are different. She never knew him in Starfleet, never moved in the same circles as him. On Terra he held little meaning for her. He did his job, he kept his head down, at least as much as any Terran could. Hugh doesn’t expect anything from her, he doesn’t need anything from her which is why when she’s with him, she doesn’t feel the need to hide her darker side or hide behind it. She’s come to understand that these darker impulses result not only from decades of experience in being an imperial overlord, but years of being a determined Starfleet command officer and Captain of an often under resourced and overperforming ship that had saved countless lives and made quite a few groundbreaking scientific discoveries along the way. Not all of her bitchy frustration can be credited to the Emperor alone. Captain Georgiou still smarts at the idea of all that she was made forfeit to at the hands of Starfleet ‘the machine.’ Though she still believes in Starfleet ideals on her best of days, she can’t help but occasionally wonder how different her life would have been if she had dispensed with protocol sooner. 

In any event, the third Philippa—she who was without title, she who was bound to no one and no duty and no cause she had not expressly chosen for herself—never tired of reminding the others that this was the life that they lived now and that they were all pretty damn happy with it. Which is why, Philippa knows, she must fight to preserve it.

“Philippa?” Hugh asks with mild concern, “are you still there?” 

“I’m here. I’m just a little—”

“Yeah, I noticed.” Hugh lays a tentative hand on her shoulder, sensitive to the fact that touch outside her most immediate family is not always a welcome or soothing experience for Philippa. But this time she graciously covers his hand with her own before slinking away. 

“I believe you were about to lay into me about my nickname for our little evening chats.” Hugh rolls his eyes.

“I just don’t know why you insist on calling them that when I am not a woman. I’m queer but I still very much identify as a man.” 

“Yes you do honey.” Paul Stamets’s voice calls out from the bathroom. 

“And what else, pray tell, would you have me call these tête-à-têtes?” Philippa’s can’t help the wicked grin. Pushing Hugh’s buttons is always entertaining because no matter how aware he is that she’s doing it, he engages her anyway. That’s another thing she appreciates about him, his sense of fight, the honest delight he’s pursued since his return to the land of the living. She can _definitely_ identify with that. 

“Ok, to be honest, I hadn’t gotten that far in my process...” Philippa’s cocks an eyebrow at him.

“Go figure.” 

Paul chooses that moment to pop out of the bathroom with wet hair and a sonic toothbrush dangling from his mouth. 

“Oh, hey Philippa! I didn’t realize you were here! Is it Girl’s Night again already?” She doesn’t attempt to hide her smile at Hugh’s glower.

“Why do I even try?” The Doctor says, pressing a quick kiss to his husband’s cheek.

“Good evening Paul. I trust that all is well with you?” Philippa had never had much of a problem with Paul Stamets. He was efficient, quick on his feet, and taken to melodrama, which she could understand. It also didn’t hurt that he was a scientific experiment of his own. But most importantly, he was incredibly kind to Uri and was trying his absolute best to adjust to a timeline where his husband’s best friend was moonlighting as somewhat of a mix of diplomatic envoy and assassin for Starfleet Command. 

“Uh, yeah?” Paul says scratching at his head “Can’t really complain?” 

“Are you asking me or telling me?” Philippa says with some amusement. Paul wasn’t necessarily the best conversationalist but she knew had to do with his incredibly high IQ and the fact that there wasn’t hardly a second he was awake when he wasn’t mulling over his next big project.

“Hey, before you head out,” Paul says stopping on his way back to the bedroom “when you see Michael tonight, will you tell her Adira and I need her for a project? I’ve been trying to get a hold of her all day but she’s been surprisingly AWOL.” Lieutenant Stamets’s question is harmless in nature, but damn if it doesn’t hit on the exposed nerve that Philippa has embodied all day. 

“Of course.” She promises smoothly, nodding goodbye at the blonde trying to maintain a sense of composure. But the second she sees Hugh’s face she knows she’s been clocked. She can’t help it now, but whenever Michael’s name is so much as mentioned, her own face shutters like an old fashioned storm window in an oncoming hurricane.

Hugh stares at her momentarily baffled until he connects the dots.

“So this is what this impromptu get together is about?” Paul was right about one thing. This isn’t when they usually plan their regular get togethers, but after the past two weeks Philippa has had, she needed the escape.

“Yes,” she admits, “it is.” Hugh purses his lips thoughtfully.

“Are you finally going to tell me what the hell has been going on between the two of you?” He whispers in a valiant attempt to respect her privacy, even though she’s already aware that short of expressly invoking Doctor-Patient confidentiality, there is hardly a thing that goes on that Hugh doesn’t share with his husband. She and Michael are the same way, after all.

“Yes.” Philippa wiggles her eyebrows at him, hoping to entice him into leaving his quarters sooner rather than later. “Every sordid detail.”

That, Hugh must know is untrue. Philippa is an incredibly guarded person. Still, there is no one else other than Michael that she is more forthcoming with. What she has to say to him will be as good as it gets for anyone around these parts. 

His spirits renewed, Hugh rushes her out the door but not before shouting a rushed goodbye to his partner.

“Ok, see you later hun. Philippa and I are off to our usual Girl’s Night. Don’t wait up, I’m not sure when we’ll be back!” 

Philippa smirks all the way down the corridor. 

“I thought you weren’t pleased with my choice of words?” 

“Well that was before I realized we were about to drink ourselves under the table with as much synthehol as we can order.” Hugh says brightly, reaching over to playfully punch her in the shoulder. 

“What am I, a rookie?” She’s slightly offended that he thinks so little of her. Synthehol on a night like this? She flashes the contraband bottle tucked away in her knee length leather jacket. “Whoever still believes that style and function are truly incompatible after all these years obviously hasn’t met me.” On more sedate nights they had been known to enjoy a few glasses of wine, a single malt scotch here and there, and Hugh’s preferred glass of a classy high proof rum with an orange peel on nights when things were getting a little bit rowdy. 

But tonight, tonight Philippa’s brought something special for the occasion. 

_Tequila_.

“Oh Pippa Georgiou,” Hugh swoons, “how I love thee!” Philippa cackles and shoves him lightly into the bulkhead. 

“Watch it Culber, I’m already married.”

* * *

“We talked about it a few times.” Hugh says plainly, toying with the glass in his hands. “Paul was considering it but after becoming the only person with the ability to navigate the spore drive, the discussion kind of took a backseat.”

“Interesting choice,” Philippa drawls, a comment meant to provoke ire about the gender roles of his relationship. Hugh is ready to pick up their old argument again about the importance of “malleability” until he catches the teasing look in her eye. 

“This is the most fun you’ve had in awhile isn’t it?” Hugh throws her an easy smile. Though she misses the steady sense of camaraderie and connection with her wife, and there is no one that can make her laugh with reckless abandon like Michael can, she’s not ashamed to admit she misses the more physical aspects of their relationship as well. It has been awhile since she’s had some ‘proper’ fun, which is exactly why tonight, she intends to get well and properly drunk. 

While Captain Philippa Georgiou had long displayed a masochistic proclivity towards edging and delayed pleasure in her career, her personal life (or lack their of), and the barely repressed homoerotic intimacy between her and her beloved former First Officer; Emperor Georgiou detested the practice of delayed gratification everywhere outside of the bedroom, and even there it had it limits. 

And it was the edging—all of it—that had put her in this exact situation in the first place. 

“So what really happened?” 

Philippa pours another shot into each of their glasses and then tosses them back in immediate succession like a pro. Hugh blinks in surprise, lets out a low whistle, and pushes away from the table.

“I’ll just replicate some more limes.”

“Yes,” Philippa says wiping the tequila from her mouth with the back of her hand, “you do that.”

* * *

  
“I want you to beg.” Michael says in her most matter of fact voice. The Vulcan trained scientist in her loves these moments of experiment and study, but is the human in her that makes them an art.

“Everyone knows I don’t beg” Philippa’s chin juts out imperiously, though her shaking legs and wavering voice tell a different story.

“Oh no, no, no.” Michael tweaks a nipple for emphasis and Philippa doesn’t bother to hold back her throaty moan. “Everyone else only _thinks_ you don’t beg. But I,” Michael dances her hands up Philippa’s ribcage and moves in to encase a breast in each hand. “I know better.” Philippa, who is already lightheaded, knows that Michael is right but after a week of not being able to get their schedules to align with one of their resident babysitters, she’s feeling wanton.

“Oh? And what is it that you _think_ you know, Commander?” Philippa arches into the touch, bringing some of her own firepower to the discussion. Nothing works Michael up faster than the sight of her wife undulating underneath her and it would be foolish to waste all those years of extensive dance training Philippa had picked up in both universes. She’s always had exquisitely talented hips.

Michael leans back on her haunches and lets Philippa work her magic, hair loose and wild and splaying over everything. The older woman can see how badly Michael’s fingers are itching to weave through her long hair, so she reaches for Michael’s hand and threads it into her black and brown strands. She tries to guide Michael’s other hand south but the younger woman refuses to take the bait. She takes control of the situation again, dragging Philippa’s mouth to her own with a fist full of hair. 

Gods, if she doesn’t love it when this woman, _her woman_ , plays dirty. 

“I can show you much better than I can tell you Pip.” Michael whispers hotly against her ear, trailing kisses down the side of her jaw, her neck, her collarbone, then underside of breast.

Phillippa is sure that Michael can. In fact, she’s counting on it. 

Michael nips at her lover’s navel and tortuously drags her mouth down the side of one hip when a brazen thought occurs to Philippa.

“Care to up our wager?” She pants regally.

“Depends on what you have in mind.” Philippa doesn’t have to see the smile on Michael’s infuriatingly lovely face to know that it’s there. 

“Double or nothing?” Betting is, after all, about the stakes. The higher the stakes, the higher the dopamine payoff.

“How about triple or nothing?” Michael suggests. Philippa’s stomach flips at the painfully human devil may care attitude Michael displays while simultaneously projecting an entirely Vulcan sense of cool into her voice and actions. 

“You seem very confident about this wager,” a fact that makes Philippa ready to come undone on the spot. There’s nothing more attractive to her than the braggadocio of someone with the ability to back it up and Michael puts her latinum where her mouth is... _every. single. time._

“From where I stand, there is only one logical conclusion to the evening.” 

“And just where are you standing again?” Philippa flirts, eyes fluttering prettily. 

Michael quickly wedges her body between Philippa’s hips. In a lithe motion, she lifts the woman’s legs on to her shoulders, stopping every so often to press open mouth kisses on the backs of her calves and tongue a path up to the joining of her thighs. 

“Right here.” Michael says leaning her cheek against the inside of Philippa’s right thigh. 

“Do your worst.” Philippa demands, or tries to, but she’s rather having trouble catching her breath. Michael has resumed her ascent and is nipping at the tender flushed flesh with a childlike excitement, hovering just in front of Philippa’s sex where she takes a deep breath and brushes her nose against the warm, glistening center. 

“You’re on.” Michael breathes and Philippa knows with great certainty that she is going to _lose, lose, lose._

No matter, she’s never played a game she can’t win. And at the other end of Michael’s tongue, losing has never felt so sweet.   
  


* * *

  
“Knowing the two of you, this wager was probably over something completely idiotic like laundry.” Hugh tugs his jacket off and slings it around the back of his chair. 

“One does have to keep things interesting.” Philippa brings her legs onto the chair across from her and crosses her high heeled boots at the ankles. Hugh takes in her leather shoes, jacket, and skirt and shakes his head.

“How are you not dying in all of that? Also, is it getting hot in here? I swear it’s getting hotter in here.” He pulls at his collar next but to no avail.

“It’s the liquor Culber. A hundred percent organic, remember?” She taps out a rhythm on the glass bottle with her fingernails. She too finds herself growing hot, admittedly for different reasons. “And absolutely not, I quite enjoy laundry duty. The stakes were much higher.” 

Hugh is usually better at holding himself together under these circumstances, but truth be told, it’s been awhile since she’s been able to secure a bottle under the watchful eyes of the Captain—and worse—his XO. It doesn’t do to be fucking the ship’s Number One while actively undermining all of Commander Burnham’s work to ensure some sense of order aboard the Disco, or at the very least, being _caught_ actively undermining her work. Her Most Imperial Majesty and the decorated Captain Georgiou have a deal. The little things that Michael and Saru don’t know won’t kill them, not likely anyway. 

“While I admit that your life is much more interesting than mine on even the worst of days,” Philippa preens. Hugh does know how to compliment her. “Things have been fairly stable onboard lately. What could you possibly have been playing for?” 

He’s right. Things _had_ been stable as of late. Contrary to popular belief, Philippa wasn’t one to go bruising for an intergalactic fight anymore. As the mother of a small child, she much preferred the fights come to her and that they be contained to Alpha and Beta shift, no less. 

“If you must know, good Doctor, we were playing for _Adventures with Flotter_.” The look on Hugh’s face is incredulous and slightly horrified. 

“You were betting over who would get the opportunity to play the worst thing that’s come out of fast forwarding through the last 900 years?” Any of the ship’s current crew members over the age of four knew Hugh’s words weren’t hyperbole in the least. 

“No you imbecile. We were fighting over who was going to be conveniently called away on ‘green alert’ next time Uri’s up in the holodeck rotation.” Hugh’s bark of laughter is pleasantly surprising and Philippa finds herself joining in, relaxing for the first time all evening. 

“Pippa.” Hugh admonishes, wiping the tears from the corners of his eyes. “When are you going to tell that poor girl that ‘Green Alert’ isn’t a thing? And it’s the future, she doesn’t need to be in the holodeck rotation to play Flotter. She can do that from the comfort of your quarters.” Philippa sucks her teeth dismissively. 

“Green Alert is a thing, Dr. Culber, because I continue to say it is,” the menacing effect of Philippa’s pointed finger is undercut by the lime wedge in her hand. “And don’t you ever breathe a word of what you just said about the holodeck again or so help me, you will live to regret it.”

“I’m not scared of you.” Hugh says and he means it. It’s why she loves him so damned much. But still, it wouldn’t do for him to get too familiar. As Captain of the _U.S.S. Shenzhou_ , she had long learned the art of making friendly connections with her crewmen without ever encouraging them to believe they knew her better than they did. A little bit of healthy distance went a long way. Unless that crewman was Michael Burnham, in which case there was no point in trying.

“You should be. I’m more creative than I look.” She insists. Hugh looks at her queerly. 

“Of course you’re creative. Nobody said that you weren’t creative!” 

“I’m merely suggesting that there are terrible things I could do to you without ever having to leave a mark.” Philippa’s teeth glint in the mood lighting of the empty mess hall. 

“My, my. Are you coming on to me Commander Georgiou?” 

“Oh, you’d enjoy that wouldn’t you.” Actually, she’s sure that she could find a way for them to both enjoy that, but Philippa is nothing if not loyal. _Pity_. “But alas, I was thinking something more diabolical like clearing your schedule so you could spend all day in the latest Flotter program Captain Saru was so kind as to gift us last month.”

“Jesus.” Hugh says aghast, “What did you do to deserve that?” 

“Not me,” Philippa smiles thinly, thinking of that fateful day when Michael had insisted that they take full advantage of Saru’s ready room while he was reportedly off ship for the day. Philippa had made the mistake of revealing Captain Geogiou’s long held fantasy of taking Michael in the ready room of the _Shenzhou_. Captain Georgiou had a great many other fantasies about her first officer, though most were disappointingly chaste—like the casual intertwining of hands on a walk down an empty corridor. It just so happened that this was _everyone’s_ favorite. Philippa had been hesitant for a number of reasons, but Michael is very good at wheedling and swore Saru wasn’t expected back until the next day. Something about an impromptu trip to Ni’var?

With her old telescope set out and a few other trinkets of hers that Saru had touchingly kept after the Battle of the Binary Stars, the likeness was astonishing. Suffice to say, Captain Georgiou had enjoyed herself immensely. And if her old Second Officer Saru had unexpectedly stopped back in as his former Captain was topping the ship’s Number One, it wouldn’t have been so mortifying. In fact, it would have been comical and exactly one of the many things that she had tried to avoid by clumsily side-stepping Michael’s advances on the Shenzhou. Unfortunately, Saru had walked in on the tail end of things when Her Imperial Majesty, Mother of the Fatherland, Overlord of Vulcans and Queen of Power and Bratty Bottoms Everywhere had come out to play. Saru had caught her ass out with both legs locked in a vice grip around Michael’s waist as they rutted against each other. Even worse, Michael had startled badly which then caused her to buck against Philippa who, in the confusing rush of endorphins, had been driven to climax, _loudly_. 

It was so humiliating that the three of them had agreed to never speak of it again. Saru had passed on the speeches, deciding to exit the room swiftly in order to to give the commanders time to “get their affairs in order.” Michael and Philippa did eventually have a good laugh about it, but only after a half dressed Philippa had used her comm badge to transport back to their quarters and left Michael to awkwardly replace all the items on Saru’s desk. 

When Michael had finally made it back to their quarters shamefaced and apologetic, Philippa had one good look at her love before bursting into uncontrollable laughter. The laughter and the secret smiles had promptly died, however, when Saru had approached their family in the mess hall three days later with a special gift for his favorite Captain’s Assistant. Philippa had been right to be suspicious. It was the latest installment of the _Adventures of Flotter._

“Fun for the whole family!” Saru promised. He’d begun broaching the possibility of using Captain’s priority to clear the family’s schedule and get them a day of unlimited holodeck time when Philippa had gripped her knife so hard she drew her own blood. Michael quickly diffused the situation by thanking Captain Saru for his offer but letting him know it wouldn’t be necessary. The wonderful gift he bestowed upon them was generous enough as it was. They avoided the mess hall for a week after that. 

Sighing, Philippa finds herself growing nostalgic for the simple days where getting caught in the ready room with her skirt around her waist was the most mortifying thing she had experienced, after being murdered multiple times and shot into the future. 

“Let me guess,” Hugh said finally, “I don’t want to know.” 

“You don’t want to know. But if you’d like, I can arrange for some uninterrupted time with you and your niece on the holodeck at your earliest convenience. It is almost her birthday.” 

Hugh, who had only ever made it through thirty minutes of the program without hightailing it off the holodeck, shudders and throws back a shot of his own. “Say no more, you evil woman.” He pours new shots for each of them. “Say no more.”

Philippa smiles ruefully and clinks her glass against his. _“Sorakan.”_

“Out of curiosity,” Hugh hedges, feeling bolder after his forth?—no, fifth?—shot, “how far into the bet did you...make it?” 

“Three hours.” Philippa says wistfully and Hugh erupts into a fit of coughs.

“Three hours?!” He gasps for breath. “Fucking hell Pippa!” But Georgiou just turns and smiles serenely.

“Quite the opposite Doctor.” _Quite the opposite indeed.  
  
_

* * *

  
Inevitably, Philippa gives in for both of their sakes. Michael is barely holding on, growing further and further incoherent. As much as Philippa loves driving Michael wild, she doesn’t want to break her. Vulcan culture is steeped in the practice of Tantric Sex, sex for hours without a need for immediate release or any release at all. Michael is also well versed in these practices but her physiology is simply different and, to be transparent, Philippa has never really been interested in the meditative possibilities of sex. Their sex today hasn’t been prayerful or reflective in the least. It’s been teeth and nail and bone, sinfully reverent at best. 

It also doesn’t help that Philippa only grows more impatient the older she gets. A few years ago she might have lasted five or even six hours, but now she doesn’t see the point in delaying the inevitable. And why should she delay what they both so badly want? Michael, predictably, longs to be the hero of their story and the tightly controlled Philippa laughably wants nothing more than to fall apart within the sanctity of their bedroom where she can be reduced to a messy display of tears and incoherent noises as she pretends to be responsible for nothing and beholden to no one. 

Past the second hour, she goes as far as to confess every terrible no good thought she’d had while Michael was last off ship during an away mission. Without filter, Philippa finds herself unable to stop the words, any words that come to mind, from tumbling out of her mouth. Soon after, it’s during a particularly creative litany of curses and _harder—no—faster’s_ that Philippa releases the last of her inhibitions and finds herself urging Michael to put a baby inside her.

“Fuck, Baby.” Michael’s voice is strangled and there’s an unmistakable flash of desire in her eyes. “What did you say?” 

“I want you to put a baby inside me Michael.” Philippa enunciates slowly, wrapping both her legs around her wife for emphasis, changing their angle and urging Michael deeper. 

“Fuck.” Michael’s brain short circuits. “ _Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!_ ” 

There’s nothing quite like hearing those words that come out of Michael’s usually tightly controlled mouth when they’re alone. The Vulcan raised Burnham hardly had the opportunity to express herself so creatively for years. When she does, it sounds like music to Philippa’s ears. A way that her influence continues to seep into Michael’s consciousness. Another way Philippa leaves her mark on the woman before her. 

Philippa says it again, just to feel Michael tremor against her. Her lover drives into her with such a renewed fervor that Philippa questions if she’ll be able to get out of bed tomorrow. But that, she decides, is for tomorrow’s Philippa to worry about. 

“Say it again.” Michael urges her, thrusting with just the right mix of reckless abandon and machine-like precision that drives Philippa wild. “Say it again.” Michael says securing Philippa’s waist with a punishing grip. 

And _oh_ , how she hopes it bruises tomorrow. Everything about this encounter hurts so good. It’s been three hours of dancing on the knife’s edge between an exquisite pleasure and torture more severe than any she’s ever known before. Three hours and Philippa is on the edge of what must be the most powerful orgasm of her life, which is to say that she has finally reached the part in this game where she is at her utmost truthful and least calculating.

“I want it Michael,” Philippa says, cradling Michael’s glistening cheek in her palm. “I want it. We all want it,” she says with great emphasis, “we all do. _All three of us_...We always have.” And hasn’t she? It was just never the right time, never the right place. 

_“Philippa._ ” Michael groans, announcing just how close she is to the edge herself. And though she hardly needs it, Michael brings her thumb up to Philippa’s clit and sets a punishing pace intending to bring them to climax together.

“Please Michael, please Michael, please.” She chants.

“Philippa, Baby.” Michael breathes, dragging her mouth down to latch onto one of Philippa’s nipples.

“Yes Michael _._ _Oh gods yes_.” She babbles, full body writhing as though possessed by a spirit. “I’ve never wanted anything more. Put a baby inside me. Put your baby inside me, put your—”

Michael roars her finish in a frighteningly arousing impersonation of a lion and Philippa happily leaps off the edge, shouting after her. 

As she falls, a fire ignites in her body, from the very tips of her toes to the top of her head and for a singular moment, everything is painfully clear. 

Philippa wants nothing more than to carry Michael Burnham’s child. 

And in that instant, she has not only lost their wager (triple or nothing) but she has completely exposed herself. There isn’t a single secret between them now, not one single thing Michael doesn’t know about her. She’s completely stripped bare and it makes the high of her orgasm that much more delicious. It’s quite simply the best she’s ever had. That is, of course, until her senses eventually return and she comprehends the profundity of divulging her deepest, darkest secret and greatest insecurity to her wife of two years and her dear friend of over a decade. And yet, she still wants nothing more than to carry Michael’s baby, even as she knows with great certainty that it could never happen. 

Her rising panic is a striking counterpoint to the earthquake like aftershocks raging through her body. She wants to fight, to freeze, to flee immediately, but her legs feel like so much putty. 

Michael, who she has only now registered as silently weeping into her breast for the past 60 seconds, looks up at her with red wide rimmed eyes. Philippa alternates between burning with a deep sense of love and desire for her mate and feeling like she’s been doused in the cold ice water. This, she knows, is the result of the terrifying and terribly mortifying ordeal of _being known,_ being seen completely and entirely. She throws out a hand, ready to toss her head back and laugh it off or, worse case scenario, throw Michael to the ground to escape from their bed hissing and spitting like a mad snake. 

Before she can get her shields up and running again, Michael lifts herself up onto her knees, straddles Philippa’s hips and smiles down at her beatifically, a halo of starlight behind her head. 

“Wow,” she breathes, taking in Philippa’s prone form, from the suspiciously wet eyes to the hair fanned out on the pillow below them like a goddess. Michael looks at her like a man drowning of thirst looks at an oasis or how a drowning man looks at dry land, like she’s never seen Philippa before, like she is a wonder to behold. 

Michael bends at the waist and messily presses a kiss to her wife’s mouth. “Just, _wow.”_ Michael murmurs, swooping in for another and Philippa is shaken by just how much love she can feel pour from Michael’s lips. It makes the tears she’s been fighting fall from the corners of her eyes.

“Oh Baby.” Michael coos. “Baby, _no._ Don’t cry.” But Philippa can’t help it now. She’s weeping openly and feeling every beautiful-ugly thing she’s been hiding from everyone, especially herself. And Michael, her beautiful, beautiful Michael just wipes her thumbs under Philippa’s eyes and peppers her face with kisses until both their faces are wet and their noses cold and Philippa is laughing up at Michael through her tears. 

“A baby, huh?” Michael kisses her again, this time more deeply. Philippa surrenders to Michael’s lips and nods wordlessly, not trusting herself to speak. Michael stares down at her wife adoringly, like she is the most precious thing in all the universes. It’s not difficult for Philippa to recognize the look, even when it’s not her face that it's playing across.

Michael opens her mouth to say something and Philippa doesn’t think that she’ll be able to keep it together any longer if her wife keeps looking at her like that. She doesn’t want pity, doesn’t want whispered declarations of love, and she certainly doesn’t want any more tears. Philippa should have known that Michael would know better. Instead the younger woman shifts the mood quickly, trailing a hand from Philippa’s cheek down to the space between her breasts. A triumphant look crosses Michael’s face and Philippa can’t fight the elated feeling she feels as she’s being deftly flipped onto her stomach. The joyful yelp that escapes her lips is genuine as she presses back against Michael who lazily nips at her earlobe goading “you would just love that, wouldn’t you.”

Michael lovingly pulls the dark tendrils of hair from her lover’s forehead and Philippa realizes that Michael is not asking a question but rather making a statement of observation, of surety.

Philippa twists until they’re looking face to face. She need not see her own reflection to know that her eyes are dark, hooded, tempestuous, and brimming with love. She loves Michael, loves Uri, loves this little family they have built against all odds on this strange ship, in this strange future. Is it so terrible that she would want to expand their circle the tiniest bit more? _Even if..._

Philippa lets out a shaky breath and collects herself one last time, prepared to close the door on their conversation. In time, she will lock it resolutely and toss away the key somewhere where even she can’t find it again. She deeply appreciates the ability to mentally project herself into some seventh Philippa’s timeline, into another space and place to imagine, however briefly, a world where Philippa would swell with life instead of buckling under its shadow. As many times as she has killed and been killed, the possibility of giving life has forever felt like a distant fairytale. However tenuous it may sometimes feel, Philippa is already living out one of her happy endings. She is happy with the way things are, though she understands there is a power in knowing oneself that no one else can take away. It is only what you don’t know that can surprise or even betray you. This is the lesson she has learned time and time again with experience as her greatest teacher. 

Philippa grounds herself in five things she can see and five things she can hear, like Michael’s steady breathing in her ears, and reaches for Michael’s hand in the dark, linking their fingers together. 

“Care to up our wager, my love?” Michael snorts and pulls Philippa more tightly into her arms.

“Oh, you’re on. Just let me catch my breath first.” 

“Fifteen minutes?” Philippa jests, knowing Michael will be dead to the world in 30 seconds flat. 

“Ten.” Michael says with so much earnestness that Philippa can only bring Michael’s fingers to her lips and sigh like a young woman in love.

“Whatever you say my dear. Whatever you say.”

* * *

  
“Well?” She says looking furtively at Hugh who looks slightly astonished. 

“Do you want my advice as your doctor or as your friend?” Philippa laughs, feeling a little astonished herself. In some ways she’s still getting accustomed to the internal shift. 

“Both? Neither? To be honest, I don’t know.” Her shoulders slump forward. She drops her face in her hands. 

“Well.” Hugh breathes, “As your doctor, it’s my duty to advise you that three hours is entirely too long for that level of human foreplay.” He bumps his leg against her own, “Seriously, it’s worrisome.”

Philippa laughs again in spite of herself and Hugh reaches out to pull one of her hands into his so that she’s looking at him.

“But as your friend—your very best friend may I add—I think that the solution is simple.” 

She groans.

“If it’s so simple, then why haven’t Michael and I, two of the greatest minds on this ship, figured it out yet.” Culber laughs heartily. 

“That is exactly why you haven’t figured it out yet! It’s too simple. I mean, have you actually tried to sit down across from her and have a conversation about it yet?” A fair question to which, of course, the answer was no. 

Philippa _had_ tried to get Michael alone, but even then she had to admit her intention wasn’t to process what she said so much as it was to encourage Michael to forget that she had even mentioned it to begin with. It wasn’t that she wasn’t grateful for the beautiful experience Michael had given her, this gift of loving someone so intensely and fully that there was no bigger honor she could think of than to carry a part of that woman’s lifeforce inside of her. She was grateful, very much so, but it was her issue and her body to work through alone. And she had been working through it. She had punched her way through it on the holodeck, she had meditated on it, and she had cried through it many, many times, coming to the same conclusion. It was a beautiful fantasy, but that was all it was, _a fantasy._ A fantasy it wasn’t fair to burden Michael with. 

What if her words had awakened in Michael a want for the first thing that Philippa couldn’t move Heaven and Earth to give her? What if Michael wanted what she could not deliver, or worse, what if Michael had dreaded the belief that Philippa could? Nothing would hurt her more. 

Whatever the case may be, she thinks she’s finally come across one truth she’s not sure she wants to uncover. The realization overcomes her and Hugh doesn’t hesitate.

“Oh, Philippa.” 

He wraps her into a firm hug and lets her cry into his chest. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If it’s not balancing on the edge between messy comedy and harrowing tragedy, I don’t want it!
> 
> 🤡
> 
> anyway, drop me a line. genuinely interested to see if folks think this hit the mark or not!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Philippa and Uri share a cozy moment, Michael acts her shoe size and not her age, and Philippa finally shares what's been on her mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the beginning of this is sweet and mostly easy. #cozyphilippa is my new favorite philippa, hands down. things get rough in the middle but we definitely end in an upswing???

Philippa startles when she feels something settle in against her but an arm on her shoulder presses her back into the bed. 

“You need your rest.” 

Her head is spinning and it’s difficult to make out all of the sensations and sounds around her, but the guiding hand returns with a cooling palm on her brow and a tiny canister that hisses against her neck.

“This should help.” The soothing voice promises, and it does, though it doesn’t make her any less tired. She still feels like she’s been dragged through three rounds with a Nausicaan, but the worst of the headache is easing now. The planes of her face smooth over and she relaxes further into the sea of pillows beneath her, gravitating towards the warm spot in the center of the bed. She finds that the warm spot, however, isn’t a warm spot at all but a tiny body. 

Instinctually, she brings the child into her arms and presses her nose into the small neck and breathes in deeply. With the waking world blurred with the edges of sleep, Philippa finds it hard to remember what had upset her so last night. There is no other place in the world that she wants to be other than right here in the cool inky darkness of this very bedroom. 

There’s a dip in the mattress behind her, a presence sitting at the edge of the bed. _Michael_. Philippa is home again, in bed with Uri and Michael. She’s missed this. Missed the quiet serenity of having everything she needs within arms reach. Here, nothing is insurmountable, nothing too impossible; even with the sadness that has permeated the last few weeks. She wonders if Michael feels the same way too, wonders if the hand that has found its way into her hair is any indication of what the other woman is thinking.

Philippa wishes she knew how to reach across the divide, wishes they could hide out just the littlest bit longer in this world of their creation. She doesn’t want to spook Michael, no more than she already has. So she wills the wheels in her brain to stop turning and evens out the sounds of her breathing until the most experienced would believe she’s drifted back off to sleep. 

They stay there in a silent tableau, each holding on to the other. Michael’s nails scrape lightly at Philippa’s scalp in a rhythm that makes it too easy to pretend at sleep. In another room, a tricom badge chirps and Uri begins to snuffle. Instinctively, Philippa gathers her in closer, pressing her lips to dark brown curls and shushing the girl until they’re both sound asleep. 

Somewhere beyond the expanse of sleep and space, Philippa hears the soft muted sounds of the Commander getting ready for the day: pulling on a new uniform, straightening her collar, reaching for the badge on the dresser table. The room grows so still that she’s sure Michael has quietly and politely (or cowardly, she can’t quite make up her mind) slipped out for the day when she hears the sound of padded footsteps approach from across the room. She feels her wife bend down to press a kiss to their daughter’s forehead and her breath stills wondering if Michael will leave without saying goodbye. It wouldn’t be the first time since this all started that Michael had slipped in and out of bed without so much as a word to Philippa. 

To her surprise, however, there’s a hand brushing back the hair from her forehead, a hot kiss to her jaw. 

“I love you.” Michael says so intensely emotional that Philippa has to fight to keep her eyes from flying open. “I love you so, so much. I just—” Michael’s voice falters and Philippa’s heart aches for her. _Aches for them both._ “I need you to know that Pip.” Michael withdraws from the bed as quickly as she descended and disappears, the whisper quiet bedroom doors sliding closed behind her. 

Philippa lies there in stunned silence until Uri stirs again. This time the young girl struggles to sit up and rubs at her eyes, looking blearily at the door. 

“Ayah?” She asks, her little voice filled with hopeful love. Philippa smiles and eases herself up the headboard and holds out her arms.

“Come,” she commands softly, “You just missed her.” Uri nods sleepily and scoots into her mother’s embrace. Philippa never tires of this, never tires of holding her daughter. There isn’t a thing in all the galaxies that can calm her racing heart more than her love for Uriel Burnham. 

“How did you end up here last night?” Philippa asks gently cradling the back of Uri’s head.

“I had a bad dream.” Uri whispers, playing with the hem of her mother’s camisole. “Ayah said I could stay with you if I was really, really quiet.” Philippa cards a comforting hand through Uri’s hair. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Philippa and Michael had agreed early on that their decades long, bad communication habits shouldn’t be their daughter’s to inherit. Uri looks up at Philippa and shrugs.

“I was floating.” 

This is Uriel’s innocent way of sharing that she had dreamt about her time alone in the escape pod. It’s been a while since Uri last had a dream like this. These day, Uri’s dreams are mostly about going jumping on a nearby moon or chasing hoards of giant tribbles around the ship. When she dreams about the escape pod, it usually indicates that there is something she is anxious about, something she doesn’t know how to parse through on her own. The last time these dreams had started up, Michael had been unexpectedly out of contact on an away mission for four of the worst days of Philippa’s life. Despite the couple’s best attempts to have their daughter sleep in her own bed, Philippa had thrown that rule out an airlock the first time she woke to the sound of Uri blank eyed and screaming in the other room. 

“Were you alone?” 

Uri nods.

“It was cold and dark.” The life support in the pod had been failing when they intercepted her. Philippa hates thinking about what would have happened if they had been too late. It makes her stomach curdle and makes the blood drain from her face. 

“Then what happened?” Philippa prompts gently. All of her reading about inter-species child psychology emphasizes the importance of encouraging Uri to process and explore her feelings if she is open to it. 

“Then it opened and I saw you Ammi.” This part of the story is more fiction than fact. It’s the way Uri’s little mind fastens together the pieces she remembers and the pieces that she’s heard. Although Uri was unconscious when she was transported onto the shuttle, this part of the dream is always the same. It’s the older woman’s arms that reach into the battered pod and pull Uri from the wreckage. It’s Philippa’s face she sees first, the emergency lighting of the shuttle glowing like a halo behind her head, and Michael’s warm presence nearby. In fact, it’s Michael’s voice that Uri hears first, somewhere in the background, making contact with _Discovery_.

Try as they might, none of the specialists have managed to unlock Uri’s earlier memories and most days Philippa thinks that’s just as well. It pains her to imagine what desperate situation her early caretakers had to have been in to eject Uri into the cold dark of space, alone. There are some things, she knows, that are too painful to remember and Philippa is willing to move the immovable to protect Uri’s innocence as long as she can. 

“You saw me?” Philippa asks and Uri nods again, burrowing her head further into Philippa’s shoulder. This is the part of the story that warms Philippa inside and out. She knows it’s selfish, but she can’t help but appreciate that this story is a birth story of sorts. One where Uri climbs out of the darkness and into her mothers’ waiting arms. These are Uri’s first memories, the first page on the new book that is their life together, the day she became their daughter. 

“You saved me, but when I woke up you weren’t there.” Uri’s voice sounds disaffected, but the thumb she sticks into her mouth says otherwise. 

“That’s why you wanted to come sleep with me and Ayah.” Philippa splays a hand over Uri’s back and starts to rock. Uri hums. 

“Wanted to be close.” There is so much that children have to teach them. How easily they admit their needs without hesitation, without guile. Philippa certainly has a lot left to learn. In the meantime, however, closeness is something she can gladly provide.

After a few minutes of rocking together, Uri’s soft voice breaks the silence. 

“What time is it?” Her baby girl questions around the thumb in her mouth. Philippa squints at the chronometer in surprise. It was much later than she expected.

“It’s just past 0800 hours.” Philippa soothes, running her fingers up and down Uri’s back. 

“Are we having a lie in today Ammi?” 

“It would seem we are, my love.” On a usual day, Philippa would be up before 0530 and breakfast would be on the table by 0700. But today was no ordinary day. It was better to commit to the truth than waste time fighting the feeling. Might as well _go all in_ , as they say.

“Good. I missed you when you were away.” Words like these always make Philippa’s heart clench. She doesn’t regret being a working mother in the least, but she knows that these days have been difficult for all of them. Last night was the first night in a long time that Philippa had been absent for their evening routine. Her mission had run much longer than expected and to her disappointment, the computer had confirmed that Uri was asleep by the time she returned to the ship. Not looking forward to a tense evening alone with her wife, she had left the transporter room and headed straight to Sickbay. In all honesty, given what she presently remembers of the night before, she isn’t sure how she got back to her quarters. 

“I miss you every moment you’re not with me little love.” Philippa’s words break slightly with emotion and Uri reaches her chubby baby arms around her mother’s neck in response.

“What are we doing today?” Uri asks quietly. Philippa can feel her mind reaching for today’s schedule where there are probably a hundred different places they’re supposed to be and another hundred things they’re expected to do but an exhale of contentment against her neck stops her. 

“Whatever you want.” Philippa says, resolutely. Everything else today, can wait. 

“Really?” Uri looks at her mother eagerly.

“Really, _Vulcan’s Honor_.” She promises, splitting her fingers into the familiar salute. Uri giggles at the silliness of the gesture and presses her fingers up against Philippa’s own.

“Ammi?” 

“Yes Angel?” 

“Can we stay here a little longer?” Uri asks, lowering her head back down to her mother’s breast. Philippa’s heart swells and she wonders if it is possible to live in this moment forever. She brings a tiny hand to her lips and brushes a soft kiss against the glowing fingertips. 

“We can stay as long as you’d like.” 

* * *

If Philippa’s eyes had not been trained on her daughter, she might have noticed the turbulent energy that surrounded Commander Michael Burnham as she strode into the Mess Hall driven towards their table with an astonishing amount of misplaced anger and frustration.

“Where were you two today?” Michael says breathlessly. “I’ve been looking for you all over.” 

“I decided that a day off was in order,” Philippa says wiping the corner of Uri’s mouth with a napkin. “Why? Whatever is the matter Michael?” 

“You left your badge behind.” Michael says, her voice fairly manic. Philippa pats her chest in surprise. 

“I did?” It’s not like her to forget her badge. As Captain she could hardly ever go to the head without being in arms reach of a communications device.

“You did.” Michael says sternly, handing over the missing object.

“I must have dropped it—” 

“When you were wandering around the ship half drunk with Hugh last night?” Michael grouses.

While Philippa’s sorry about the tricom badge, she's not sure the mistake warrants a public tongue lashing in the middle of a full mess hall. Philippa whirls back to the table to see if Michael’s foul attitude has disturbed Uri or Adira, who had offered to join them for lunch. The older teen looks at them wearily, but Uri is thankfully immersed in a story about Adira’s morning in Engineering, happily munching away on honeyed pieces of Goreng Pisang.

“Adira, I’m going to grab some water and another napkin for Uri. Can I get you anything else?” Adira inclines their head politely, picking up Philippa’s real ask: _Would you so kindly watch my daughter while I deal with her other mother?_

“Water would be great, thanks.” 

Philippa plasters a smile on her face for Uri’s sake and grabs Michael by the wrist in a simple but debilitating move that will make not complying a very unadvisable thing to do. 

“Ow! What are you—” Philippa presses down harder and tugs Michael away from the table. 

“Don’t test me.” She rasps, her flinty eyes the only thing about her body language that reveals any of her true feelings at the current moment. She deftly navigates them through the lunch crowd and past the wall of replicators into a small storage alcove out of earshot where she drops Michael’s hand immediately as though she has been burned.

“Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Michael snarls.

“What the hell _am_ _I_ doing? I’m not the one who just tore through the Mess Hall spoiling for a fight during a shift change! What has gotten in to you Michael?” Philippa is spitting mad but feels an unfamiliar pressure to be the most logical one in this situation. Michael continues to confound her, beginning the day with whispered confessions of love and following it up with a stunt that she knows no Philippa would ever allow. She wraps her arms around herself tightly, trying to muster the strength necessary to deal with this mercurial Michael who must have developed a death wish overnight.

Michael has the sense to look ashamed by her actions but Philippa finds little comfort in it.

“Speak.” Philippa commands as though Michael is a naughty child, which is exactly how she is acting.

“I had some downtime on shift so I tried to find you at all the usual places but you weren’t there and...” Michael folds in on herself, “I was worried.” 

Philippa takes a steadying breath. The latent effects of Michael’s lifetime struggle with abandonment issues sometimes means that the most unexpected of things can be a trigger. 

“I’m sorry about the badge. I should have noticed sooner.” Michael’s balled fists loosen, diffused by Philippa’s uncommonly straightforward apology.

“Ok.” 

_“Ok?”_ Philippa says, eyes rising up to her hairline. “You pull that little stunt and all you have to say is, _ok_?” Michael looks at Philippa sharply.

“What am I supposed to say?” Michael asks, her voice trembling with profound emotion. “What do you want me to say?”

And just like that, Philippa is aware that they’ve arrived at a completely different conversation a thousand light years from where they started. 

“You want to have this conversation now.” Philippa says flatly. “ _Here_.”

“Yes!” Michael paces frantically in the little space “No!” 

“Which one is it?” Philippa leans against the bulkhead feeling the energy seep from her body. This pulls Michael up short who roughly drags a hand over her face. 

“I need to know Pip.” 

Philippa scoffs because this is exactly what Michael isn’t getting. There is nothing about her that Michael doesn’t already know. No secrets that Philippa has left to hide. She is an open book and no matter how uncomfortable it may make her, she’s willing to endure it all for Michael. It’s Michael who has grown unreadable, unknowable. But mutual antagonism is getting them nowhere and avoiding each other isn’t working either. So Philippa drops her defensive posture and slides to the ground, settling in for the foreseeable future.

“What is it that you would like to know Michael?” 

“That’s it? It’s that simple?” 

Philippa smiles humorlessly thinking back to Hugh’s words from the night before. What if it really is that simple?

“You asked, I’m offering. I don’t know what’s been going on with you— _with us_ —lately. But ignoring the issue isn’t making it any better, so ask away.” Michael grunts and posts up against the opposite wall. 

“Why now?” Michael blurts, intent on beginning this conversation in the most difficult place possible. Philippa clenches her jaw in frustration. Maybe it wasn’t so simple after all.

“Why _not_ now?” She parries. 

“That’s not a real answer.” Michael complains.

“I’m not sure you asked a real question.” 

Michael lets out a low groan and motions with her hands like she’s trying to tear her hair out from the root. 

“Fine then, I’ll say it!”

“Go right ahead.” Philippa spreads her arms out with a flourish. Michael sets her jaw and fixes her eyes on the wall behind her lover.

“Why do you want a baby now? Here, on this ship, with me? You’ve _never_ mentioned this before. What’s changed?” Nothing and everything, of course. Philippa is a different woman now. A wife, a mother, a composite sketch of various archetypes of women that had been made empty and wanting. But now, here on this ship, with Michael, she is made whole.

“You must not know me very well to ask that question Michael.” Philippa says, lips drawing into a taut line. She never imagined that this early into the conversation Michael would manage zero in on all her biggest insecurities. Michael has never been one to waste time, but this was impressive. 

“Philippa, don’t.” 

“We already have one child together, is the thought of another one so deplorable?” 

_“Philippa.”_ Michael implores, trying to take a step forward but Philippa rears back. 

“Or is the thought of us having any children at all the real problem?” Had _all_ the Philippa’s in Michael’s world conspired to trap her in a life of dreary domesticity?

“I adore Uri! You know I do.” Michael says, chest heaving, eyes wild. “How could you say that? How could you even think to say that?” All Philippa can think is, _how could she not?_

“How could _you_ Michael? You know how much I love you. I’m not coming to this with a hidden agenda! I love this family and I would love any other child that came into our lives as fiercely as I love Uri, as fiercely as I love you.”

“But we’re not just talking about some other child falling out of the sky, are we? You said a baby, you said you wanted to have _my_ baby.” Suddenly, Michael’s not the only one considering tearing out her hair. 

“You’re infuriatingly obtuse Michael!”

“Am I? What you’re saying doesn’t track. It’s not logical!” 

“It seemed logical enough to you when you were fucking me.” Philippa snarls.

“That is not what I meant and you know it.” Michael says voice dripping with Vulcan condescension, as though Philippa is the unreasonable one here.

“No, I don’t. And I don’t know how many different ways I can say it to you before you’ll believe me! What do you want me to say? That it would have been a privilege, an honor to be the mother of your children in every conceivable way?” Michael flinches.

“You can’t mean that.” 

“Michael, _please._ Don’t presume to tell me what I mean.” 

“It _would_ have been an honor?” Michael asks switching tactics, picking up on Philippa’s use of the past tense.

“Because it’s too late!” Philippa yells in frustration. Arriving at what she’s been agonizing over since the fateful day those words left her mouth. “It’s too late.” Philippa says pressing a fist against her mouth in an attempt to stifle her internal scream. 

“It’s not probable or likely. In all the years of my life, both of them, I’ve never been pregnant. _Not once._ And there was never any time with my career in Starfleet, not as a starship captain. Nevertheless, you came along and changed everything. But by the time I realized something could be different between us, you were my direct report and a relationship was off the table. I had hoped that you’d get your own command one day and we could, I don’t know, begin again. But the years continued to pass and then—”

“ _The Shenzhou_ was up in smoke.” Michael whispers and Philippa laughs hopelessly. 

“Yes, and I was...” she’s not afraid to say the words, but she knows how they affect Michael, her beautiful Michael who feels a weight of responsibility for her first death.

“Yeah.” Michael sides to the floor with a thud. “Why not on Terra?”

“Well you’ve seen Terra with your own eyes haven’t you?” Philippa steels herself against the onslaught of memories that is Terra. The tastes, the sights, the sounds are too much for her now. “Every spare second had been spent vying to stay on the throne. I couldn’t risk a pregnancy so early into my reign. It wasn’t until I met _her_ that it occurred to me that another life was possible. There was something about that child on that rubbish heap that understood more about me than any one in court ever had.” Philippa breathes through her nose and out through her mouth. “It’s so lonely at the top. The days long and the nights full of paranoia. There’s never any peace. And it grinds you down eventually, spits you out. Somedays I wonder...”

“Wonder what?”

“If I should have left her there. If I should have spared her all of it. Protected her by never bringing her into my life to begin with.” The sorrow she feels is...vast. 

_I_ _was king of that trash heap_ , another Michael had screamed full of pain and longing for a life where her aspirations were simpler, a life where killing the only woman that had ever loved her wasn’t the most secure path to the throne. 

“You still miss her.” Michael says softly, surprised perhaps, but without judgement in her tone. 

“Do you still miss her?” The woman she had been before, the beloved captain and friend?

“You are her.” 

“Am I Michael?” Philippa wipes a stray tear from her eye. 

“You’ve always been. In every way that matters to me.” They’re both teary-eyed now. 

“She was right you know.”

“About what?” Michael asks curiously and Philippa thinks back to that last conversation where her ward had thrown accusation after accusation. _You’ve grown weak!_

“I built the _Charon_ with the hope that I could retire there and explore the question again, with her by my side. Together we would change the way things were done. Secure a blood claim to the throne, finally something no one could contest, not without making it past the both of us. We were fierce together.” Philippa leans back thinking about the rooms she had hoped to fill with a child’s laughter, the life she had hoped to live before Michael’s knife had blossomed in her neck. “In that world we would have been an unholy trinity. She would have been my flaming sword, I would have been Mother of the Empire, and our child, well, she would have been something else entirely.” She sees the twisted vision for what it is now, a risky gambit that could have only ended the same way it began, in total tragedy. 

“Do you still want that?“ Michael asks hesitantly. 

“Now?” Philippa chuckles incredulously. “No, I do not.” She wraps her arms around her knees.

“I’m not any of those women anymore Michael. We’re— _I’m different_. I don’t want to be a flightless captain or an admiral chained to a desk who only sees her children on weekends. And I’m not interested in sacrificing anymore children in the pursuit of empire. I just want to be me.” She sees the light flick on in Michael’s head. 

“Commander Philippa Georgiou-Burnham.” 

“I could take or leave the Commander, but I suppose I’m fond of the rest.” She smiles ruefully. Starfleet’s recognition means so little to her now, though Michael’s mission here means everything, like this ship and her crew that had given Philippa a second and third chance at life. 

“Then what do you want?” Michael asks so urgently, as though she still thinks there is another life to be lived by this rich and strange Philippa, a life other than the one she’s been leading all along. 

“Would you believe me if I said that this was enough?” Philippa's voice is hoarse and plaintive, but the stricken look on Michael’s face is informative. It seems they’ve reached the part of the discussion where they’re brushing up against Michael’s own set of things that go bump in the night. 

“Oh nyingdu-la,” Philippa says, reaching across the divide for one of Michael’s hands. “Is this what the problem was all this time?” Michael’s face crumples and Philippa tugs the younger woman’s head into her lap. She has wanted Michael so intently in every universe that she forgets how much Michael’s struggles with the question of belonging predate their fated meetings. She forgets how much Michael struggles with a gnawing fear of being unwanted and unloved. It’s the cross that every Michael must bear, no matter how much Philippa wishes she could carry it for her. But Philippa says the words anyway, hoping that they get through to the child inside of Michael in a way they never have before. 

“You are enough Michael Burnham. I’m sorry if I ever made you think for a second that you weren’t enough, but you’re everything to me,” Philippa says softly. “I followed you here, crossed two universes and jumped 900 years into the future to be _with_ _you,_ so make no mistake. Captain Georgiou would have been content forever with you as her first officer. Emperor Georgiou would have been content only to rule by Her side. And I am content to be your wife. The rest is just—“

“Icing on the cake?” 

“In some ways I’ve lived a hundred years and in others I’m hardly older than our daughter.” Philippa speaks in low murmurs. 

“Before—my life wasn’t my own. I’ve wasted so much time living for other people, living to preserve someone else’s abstract ideals. It wasn’t until these years here with you that I began to imagine what it would be like to live for me. I know what the crew thinks, but you know me better than anyone. I am a cautious woman Michael. It’s being with you that dares me to hope. It’s because of your love that I’m here and that I’m whole. It’s because of you that I finally find myself with enough love to spare and I can’t think of a better way to honor that fact than to share that love with someone else who would need it. Does that answer your question?” Michael says nothing but wraps her fingers around Philippa’s and squeezes in reply.

“I don’t need you to tell me how you feel now, or ever. It was important for me to share this part of myself with you but I don’t need a grand gesture or form of compensation.” At this, Michael lifts herself from Philippa’s lap. “I don’t need you to fix this Michael, I don’t need you to do anything really. I only needed you to listen.” Philippa rests a hand over Michael’s heart and the younger woman covers it with a warm hand of her own.

“I have some things to tell you.” Michael says slowly, but the implication is clear. Now isn’t the right time. Philippa, who had once dreaded this moment, feels a kind of peace come over her. There wasn’t a single thing she said that she didn’t mean. Michael is enough. Uri is enough. Their life here is enough. Whatever Michael has to give, has already given her, is more than enough. She trusts Michael implicitly, she trusts Michael with her lives. Whatever Michael has to share, Philippa will be able to bear. 

“Whenever you’re ready.” 

* * *

When Philippa returns to the table, Adira and Uri are engaged in a game of kadis-kot. A quick glance at the board tells her that Uri must have unknowingly forfeited the game several moves ago though she is enjoying herself anyway. 

“Look at my little kadis-kot champions.” Philippa says teasingly. The Engineer, she knows, is nearly an adult, but the she enjoys the opportunity to remind Adira that, prodigy or not, they’re still _Discovery’s_ original baby. 

“Everything ok?” Adira asks frowning as they think of the tense exchange from earlier. Michael did not follow Philippa back to the table, realizing that taking space to process was prudent. 

“More than ok,” Philippa says, pressing a kiss to Uri’s cheek and then Adira’s. “Absolutely nothing for either of you to worry about.” Adira visibly relaxes and Philippa is reminded of an old Earth adage. _When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers._ The strain between the two women had unnecessarily affected their friends and family. The children most of all. On three different occasions this week Tilly had run in and out of the Mess Hall without so much as a look in Philippa’s direction.

“Now,” Philippa says, clapping her hands together, “I seem to have forgotten what I left for in the first place. Would you still like that water?” Adira blushes and nods.

“Two waters coming right up.” Philippa winks and walks off.

* * *

After their fraught conversation in the supply closet, the rest of the day had felt like a necessary healing. Philippa and Uri had bid Adira goodbye, leaving to chase each other around the holodeck in a program of Golden Gate State Park. In the afternoon sun they navigated through the older crowd of Tai Chi practitioners in the Japanese Tea Gardens and strolled the rest of the way to Ocean Beach where Philippa was happy just to watch Uri’s amazement at the tide. In the golden rays of the setting sun Philippa let down her hair and revealed the feeling of the wind in her long tresses and the water lapping at her shins. Together they had darted in and out of the shallow waves until the park grew dark and Uri’s ringing peals of laughter followed them all the way home. 

Dinner had been an uncomplicated affair. Michael had been back in time for dessert and had kept them laughing through a few stories about the minutiae of her day. The younger woman had even enthusiastically volunteered for bath time, leaning in to kiss Philippa on the lips, encouraging her to take some time for herself. 

_Don’t worry babe, I’ve got this._ Michael had been so self-assured, so confident, that she almost seemed herself again. Philippa was comfortable leaving things in her capable hands and snuck off to take a shower of her own. 

Now, wrapped in a black and white kimono style robe Michael once gifted her for a birthday, Philippa pads across the floor to Uri’s doorway, content to stand back and watch discreetly.

“Ayah?” Uri asks climbing under the turned down covers, squinting up at Michael with barely veiled curiosity.

“Yeah buddy?”

“Are you feeling better now?” Uri asks with a concerned air. Philippa waits for Michael to freeze or deflect the question, but the other woman continues to adjust the covers around their daughter without interruption.

“I am, thank you for asking.” Uri nods politely. 

“You’re welcome.”

Michael grins and drops down onto the bed next to Uri, arms and legs folded on top of the covers. 

“Have I ever told you that you’re the best buddy?” Philippa smiles knowing exactly what Michael means.

“All the time!” Uri laughs, “But you can tell me again Ayah.” Michael leans in and brushes her nose against Uri’s drawing out another laugh. 

“I love you so much. You made me an Ayah and you make me want to be the absolute best Ayah that I can be, every day.” Michael pauses and takes a deep breath. “I know that sometimes adults are weird and make things more complicated than they have to be. I know sometimes I forget to say or do the right thing but, I love you. _I’ll always love you._ You are everything to me. I don’t ever want you or Ammi to forget it, ok?” Michael’s eyes find Philippa’s over the head of their daughter and Philippa has to swallow back a sob when faced with the sheer amount of love shining in Michael’s brown eyes.

It’s clear that Uri isn’t sure what her other mother means but she knows that it’s important for her to lovingly agree. “It’s ok Ayah,” Uri says with the wisdom that only a child can possess. She covers Michael’s adult sized hands with her much smaller ones as though she has the power to heal them. 

“I’ll remember for the both of us.” Uri promises and Philippa knows, with absolute certainty, she will.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next up: Michael shares what she has to share very, um, _expressively._
> 
> thanks for reading! drop me a line and let me know what you think and also interested to see what folks think Michael will have to say 👀


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michael shares what she has to say, Philippa reflects on their years together, and Michael makes an offer Philippa can't refuse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i keep saying these last few weeks have been a lot but honestly every time i post something on this site these last few weeks have been a lot lol. 
> 
> this chapter finally gets into what michael has been thinking and also gets into some of philippa's back story with the door to forever. in my mind, overtime, i'll go back in and add little stories in between these different parts of the series that get into some of these subjects more about their past (the door to forever, their wedding, early relationship?) but then again who can really say 🥴. the general suggestion, however, is that philippa saw quite a few lives after going through the door, but the most important part is that it integrated the captain and the emperor in the process.
> 
> as always thank you for reading, drop me a line if you can, and i hope you enjoy reading this chapter as much as i did writing it!

Michael strips the robe from Philippa’s body without preamble and kneels before her like a knight pledging an oath of fealty.

_ I love you. _ She chants, pressing a kiss to her queen's knuckles, pressing a kiss to the inside of her palm, the inside of her wrist.

_ I love you. I love you. I love only you. _

Michael worships Philippa with her mouth against the wall of their bedroom until Philippa is chanting with her, knees weak and body trembling. When she can no longer stand, Michael lifts her into her arms and gently deposits Philippa’s body on the bed, beginning her prayer again. 

_ It’s you. It’s you. It’s you. _

A first finger. 

_ mine. mine. all mine _

A second.

_ Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me. Don’t ever leave me _

A third.

“I won’t.” Philippa promises and Michael’s name never leaves her lips.

There are many things Michael says without saying them. For a young human raised on a planet where expressive culture was virtually non-existent, Michael has a very expressive body. This was, perhaps, the first shared language that they spoke. Philippa still remembers their first conversation in the transporter room on the  _ Shenzhou _ , her outstretched hand rebuffed by Michael’s haughty raised eyebrow. That day Michael had issued a challenge that Philippa was all too happy to accept. She would earn Michael’s respect. Because underneath that frosty glare, there was an electric feeling that filled the space between them and crackled, an invisible string that linked them together, growing tauter and tauter through the years.

Philippa remembers the first time Michael allowed her to rest a hand upon the younger woman’s shoulder. She remembers the first time Michael had reached out to touch her, the brush of hesitant fingers across her arm. She remembers the sparring. The weight of each other’s bodies pinned to the mat. She remembers the diplomatic dances, the sure hand at the small of her back. 

She remembers the first time she thought Michael might feel the same way she did. How Michael had stood next to her in the viewport of the ready room, their sides of their bodies touching, Michael’s pinky intertwined in hers. 

And she remembers another first meeting a lifetime ago, the hand Philippa had brought to Michael’s face in wonder when the gods had seen fit to return her to the fold. Remembers the sight for sore eyes that Michael had been on the view screen after they had jumped into the wormhole after her. She remembers the overwhelming relief she felt when their eyes had locked over the heads of the  _ Discovery’s _ crew in the transporter room, the tears that had come in her guest quarters, the way Michael had crawled into bed beside her for the first time, the younger woman’s tears disappearing into her dark brown hair. 

Philippa remembers all their goodbyes too. The fierce fight that had landed Michael in the brig, the cavernous feeling of guilt she felt when she thought Michael had been ejected into the emptiness of space. She remembers watching Michael with wide horrified eyes when T’Kuvmah’s blade had pierced through her middle, and she remembers the dimness that came after.

She remembers helping Michael into the time suit, watching her disappear beyond the event horizon of the black hole. She remembers feeling her body fall out of step with time, the sheer terror she felt when she lashed out at Michael, when she goaded her.

_ Killing me would have been Her greatest honor. _

She remembers the bite of the blade resting against Michael’s trachea. Remembers saying

_ It would have been my greatest honor to have been killed by Her. _

But it wasn’t Her that Philippa wanted at that moment. It was Michael.  _ Her Michael.  _ The Michael who had pushed back, who refused the gambit, who had challenged her to choose something else. 

She remembers the snow falling all around them. The wet white landing prettily in Michael’s lashes. She remembers her feel of Michael’s cold forehead pressed against her own, their noses brushing. The whisper soft feel of their almost kiss. 

_ I will never find another like you. _

How she had meant it. She could travel the universes and never find another Michael like this Michael. She hadn’t wanted another woman. Hadn’t wanted another Burnham that would cradle Philippa’s face in her hands like it was the most precious thing in all the realms. 

She wanted  _ this _ Michael.  _ Her Michael. _ A Michael full of mettle and magic, of logic and love. 

She had walked through the door backwards, with her eyes trained on the only future she had deigned to want. 

In that liminal space between life and death, here and now, past and future, Michael’s words crashed over her.

_ We owe it to ourselves to try. _

There, in the great beyond, she lived the lifetimes of many different Philippa’s. First, she had come to know the woman that Michael had grieved so deeply. Then, she became her. Lived the other woman’s life from the moment of conception to the moment the light extinguished from her eyes, until it was impossible to distinguish where one woman ended and the other began.

From there she had seen fragments of the other lives it might have been possible for her to live. She’d seen the beautiful life Captain Philippa Georgiou had lived beside her Wife Captain Michael Burnham. Had seen them grow older together on the shores of Langkawi, in the deserts of Vulcan, on the bridges of starships, dancing in the light of the stars. She had also seen the lives where they never met at all. The lives where they danced around each other endlessly until one of them had tired of waiting. She had seen her lives with Michael on Terra. The intense but fraught love they would make in the Emperor’s chambers. She had seen their children sacrificed on behalf of the Sun God, their brittle ships shot down in battle, their empty, joyless eyes at court. In each and every one of those Terran worlds, Michael and Philippa would always rent each other to pieces. Parting would be such sweet sorrow at the end of each other’s swords. 

And yet, every new day, she would wake and do it all over again. No matter the universe, no matter the circumstance. A part of Philippa was always searching for Michael, intent on finding her. As a young girl on Earth, she ran around the streets of Langkawi searching every face; on Terra she slipped behind the secret passageways of the palace looking for someone whose countenance was just beyond the edge of her memory. As a Starfleet cadet, she spun around the lecture halls and walked endlessly across the greens waiting for that one familiar face but she never found what she was looking for until the compulsion for something else, someone else, overcame her.

As many times as she’s tried to explain this to Michael in detail, the only words that ever leave her lips are the ones Michael said to her in that critical moment that changed everything. 

_ We owed it to ourselves to try. _

She fought them, those Time Guardians, every step of the way. In the end there was but one Michael, one timeline, that Philippa had wanted to return to. All the world’s most beautiful dreams couldn’t quell the longing in her heart. She didn’t want them to. She wouldn’t let them.

The Gods had judged her and found her wanting. But they heard her when she said

_ I will never find another _

When she came to, her body was aching and cold and so, so full of life. The door was gone, winked out of existence, and Michael stood above her, the brilliance of her smile brighter than the light of a thousand suns. 

_ How? _ Michael had breathed. 

And Philippa could only think to say: 

_ Sometimes the universe allows for the making of unexpected memories. _

They laid together in the banks of snow, laughing until they cried, crying until they laughed, the light spilling in through the cracks.

* * *

Tonight, Michael insists, is all about Philippa. Michael pins Philippa’s ringed fingers above their heads and enters her painfully slow, pumping her hips rhythmically, pushing in and pulling out teasingly. 

There is not an inch of Philippa’s body that Michael hasn’t covered with incantations spelled into her skin with teeth and tongue and lip. There is not an inch of Philippa’s body that is not buzzing with an awareness of how much Michael Burnham loves her.

This is how Michael speaks her version of the tale that is their love story. It is infused in her fingers and in the twist of her spine, the crook of her neck, the tilt of her hips, the curve of her lips, the bend of her knees, the arches of her feet. 

_ You know me. _ Michael says again and again and Philippa cannot deny that she does. 

Every second and every minute of every hour of every day that led Philippa to this moment in Michael’s arms, She would choose all over again. When Michael kisses her, she knows it’s real. Knows that there is only ever one choice to be made.

She knows because she’s already made it. 

* * *

“My life wasn’t empty before you were in it.” Michael says trailing her fingers and down the plain of Philippa’s back. “But it was dull and sad in a way I didn’t quite have the language to express. Every day was the night and every night was the day before it. And then there was you.

“Suddenly, there was color and light and height and depth. You were the sun and when you were near me I could feel the warmth of your light. And when you were away I could feel the loss of that light, the loss of that heat. I lived for those moments on the bridge, our quiet dinners in your quarters, tea those early mornings in your ready room. 

“When I saw the light extinguish from your eyes on the bridge of T’Kuvmah’s ship, when Saru took me before I could reach you... I thought I was dead.  _ I was dead. _ I barely ate, I barely slept. I was barely holding it together and your absence haunted me like a ghost. 

“I let Lorca manipulate and lead me through the Looking Glass because what more did I have to lose? You were the center of my star system and I let you supernova.” Philippa feels the tears on her back as surely as she feels the ones that run down her own face.

“When I saw you again I thought,  _ Fate is a cruel mistress. _ It turned out,” Michael says without malice and no small amount of amusement, “in the end, you were crueler. But I was wrong about fate. She was only ever bringing me back to you.”

Michael envelopes Philippa in her strong arms and the press of her bare chest against Philippa’s equally bare back is a forceful medicine.

“Do you remember what I said when I married you?” 

Philippa would never forget, not as long as there was breath in her body, not as long as there was fire shut up in her bones. 

“Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn away from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.” She drops a kiss to Philippa’s shoulder and Philippa shudders beneath the intensity of Michael’s stare.

“Where you die I will die, my love, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely—” Michael’s voice hitches and breaks over Philippa like the crashing waves of an ocean. “—if even  _ death _ separates you and me.” There was no bond stronger, no love lovelier. 

“Nothing compares to you, Philippa Georgiou.  _ Nothing. _ Not in all the universes, in all the star systems, in all the galaxies. I can’t imagine living another day without you. And I will make it my life’s mission to never have to again.” When they married, Michael had brought both hands to Philippa’s face, just as she had that very first night between them, and kissed her before Admiral Vance had gotten a word in edgewise. All their lives they had waited, and waited, and waited. Michael wouldn’t allow them to waste another moment.

Here,  _ now _ , Michael turns Philippa in her arms until they’re facing each other in the starlight of the Lakota system. She lays two hands upon Philippa’s wet cheeks and squeezes. 

“You are far greater to me than you can imagine.” In this Philippa hears what she has needed to hear this whole time. What Michael had whispered into her ear the first time Philippa had come apart in her arms. Michael did not love Philippa in spite of her parts, but because of them. 

“It’s in you that I am made whole.” Michael says, echoing Philippa’s words from earlier that day, Philippa’s words from the first night they had explored each other’s bodies, the same words from Philippa’s sure but quiet vows. Michael’s kiss is sweet and slow and suspended in a memory that Philippa will carry with her forever and hold close whenever her doubt feels more solid than her faith. 

This is Michael’s gift to her. This is Michael’s promise. 

* * *

When Philippa wakes, she is cradling Michael’s head against the curve of her stomach. Michael lips are ghosting against Philippa’s skin, whispering lowly as though there is a life growing within her that only Michael can see.

She falls asleep again somewhere into the recitation of Michael’s third story, pulled from the same collection of stories Michael shares with their daughter when it is late and Uri is having trouble sleeping. 

When Philippa tips back into consciousness, Michael is still there, her hands are cupped against her mouth and the stories she tells are about the beautiful future they’ll all have together. The nebulas they’ll explore, the far reaches of space they will travel, the adventures they’ll manage without ever leaving the safety of these four walls. 

Philippa allows herself to be carried away by the stories, imagines taking her girls to Langkawi, laughing at the ill-likeness of the statue erected in her honor. She imagines taking them to Vulcan, walking them through the pleasantly warm streets into the house of Ambassador Sarek and Lady Greyson, and presenting them to their grandparents. Her womb isn’t empty so much as it is full of a collection of beautiful dreams that will never come to fruition. But then there are so many others that already have. She thinks of her Angel Uriel. Thinks of how she loves Uri as surely as she had birthed her. Sometimes, she closes her eyes and imagines she has.

And there are the others she mothers as well. The hundreds who had once lived under her command. The billions more for whom she had been Mother of Empire. Philippa has always been a mother hasn’t she? Whenever given the opportunity she has always made the choice, taken the jump, survived the fall. 

Philippa doesn’t need another child to know what the color and shape and size of her love with Michael is. She sees it all the time, in the faint glow of their daughter’s skin as she sleeps wrapped in their arms. 

It doesn’t mean she’ll ever stop wondering what it would be like to stare into the face of a child with Michael’s big brown eyes.

* * *

In the moments before their alarm signals the start of a new day, Philippa slips a hand into Michael’s hair and hums the threads of an old lullaby. 

“Philippa?” Michael’s voice is husky with sleep or the lack of it. Philippa scratches at the nape of Michael’s neck in reply. Michael presses herself into Philippa’s body and sighs.

“I want you to have my baby.” 

Philippa smiles forlornly. “I know.” 

“I don’t—I’ve never wanted to carry a baby.” Michael’s voice is muffled against Philippa’s hip. This was something that Philippa never  _ knew  _ per say, but she had always suspected. The introspection pregnancy requires, the crises of body and logic. The endless new sensations. They were never really Michael’s cup of tea. 

“I never expected you to.” Philippa says softly, twisting a curl around her forefinger. Michael huffs like an adorable child and pulls up to look at Philippa with a fine balance between determination and apprehension. 

“I have something to tell you.” 

“Do you?” Philippa asks with faint amusement. 

“I do.” Michael confirms. “I haven’t exactly been...honest with you, about where I’ve been all week.” Philippa, somehow, is not surprised. She pulls Michael back down to the bed and lets her hands continue their ministrations against the other woman’s scalp.

“Where were you?” 

“I was here onboard but...I traded some of my shifts around with Tilly and Paul, so I would have time to—”

“Think?” Philippa asks fondly. Michael is a processor and processing something of this size and weight would require more time than that spent off duty as an officer or a mother. 

“Something like that.” She can feel Michael’s eyes slide shut. 

“What aren’t you telling me Angel?” Philippa soothes. It does not matter what Michael says next, not when Philippa has already resolved to face it by her side. 

“Please don’t be mad.” Michael hedges and Philippa laughs.

“It is difficult to stay angry with you Michael.” 

“Good, because I forwarded our files to the Mount Chilalo Yemerabati Center in Addis Ababa.” The wheels in Philippa’s mind begin to turn.

“In Ethiopia?” Michael nods. “Why?”

“They’re the top human fertility specialists in the quadrant.” Philippa feels faint.

“Michael,” she says, pulling away in alarm. “No! I didn’t ask for that. I would  _ never _ ask that of you!” Philippa says, fiercely protective of the revelation Michael had shared only a moment earlier. She would never ask  _ that _ of Michael, not ever. She abhors the thought. There is no honor for Philippa in being the source of Michael’s discomfort and pain. 

“I forbid it!” Philippa says, chest heaving as she scrambles from their bed, searching along the floor for her robe. She has a distinct feeling she doesn’t want to be naked for this conversation.

“You can’t forbid me to do anything Philippa.” Michael says with an amusement that only stands to infuriate her more. “Besides, it’s too late. I’ve already heard back.” Philippa paces across the room of their bedroom floor, livid.

“It’s not too late! Stop this Michael, right now. I don’t want to hear another word of it!” Philippa is panicking but Michael’s body is languid and relaxed as it rolls off of the bed and approaches Philippa slowly like a caged animal.

“It’s alright baby. It’s alright.” 

Philippa shakes her head wildly, evading Michael’s arms. 

“No! I didn’t want this! I didn’t want to—I don’t want to make you—” Michael pulls Philippa into her embrace.

“Trust me, baby. Just trust me. Can you do that?” Philippa knows that her pupils are dilated. Can feel herself on the edge of some terrible cliff. “Baby, I need you to breathe and listen to the sound of my voice, alright?” Philippa tries but it’s difficult to hold on. It’s not often that these panic attacks grab a hold of her, but when they do...

“I can’t.” She moans but Michael draws her all the way in, rubs vigorously against her back and sways them. 

“Have I ever lied to you?” Michael implores.

“No.” Philippa grunts, fists balled against Michael’s bare chest. Never when it mattered. 

“Then listen to me now.” Michael’s commanding voice attempts to anchor her, to ground her. “You know how I am. I can’t sit down for a moment. I’ve got to be in the mix of everything, I need to feel useful, baby. And I feel so useful here. I’m in the prime of my life, the height of my mental and physical health, my emotional and spiritual health, and that’s all because of you. But it means—it means that I can’t carry a baby right now. I’m too integral to the ship’s daily functions and I have a mission here I am called to fulfill.” 

“What does that make me?” Philippa asks weakly, feeling the tension of over a decade of built up worry settle on her shoulders about the age difference between them. It’s silly, she knows. She is hardly middle aged by human standards and human lifespans have greatly increased in the centuries since she was first born. Still, twenty years is no small gap though it’s never been one Michael has complained about before now.

“What does that make you?” Michael asks with disbelief, lifting Philippa’s chin to meet her eyes. “That makes you my wife, the love of my life, and with a little help, the mother of my children.” The blood drains from her head and Philippa feels herself pitch towards the ground. 

“Philippa!” Michael cries, catching her before impact. “Philippa, stay with me.” Michael sits them on the edge of the bed, entwines their hands and presses their foreheads together. 

“I’ve run all the numbers, tried all the simulations. I’ve talked to as many experts as I could trace down in two weeks and they all say the same thing.” Philippa takes a deep ragged breath. “Our chances of conceiving are high.  _ So high.  _ All of your labs from your last physical are promising. It’s not a matter of  _ if _ , baby, it’s a matter of  _ when _ .” 

The sob that escapes Philippa’s mouth is jagged and ugly. 

“There has been 900 years of advancement in reproductive science. We can have a baby any way we want. We don’t even need a womb or a surrogate. We could rush the gestation period if we wanted to. With just the touch of a button they could give us a baby in two maybe three months flat, but—” Michael kisses away the tears on Philippa’s cheek, “I want you to have my baby. I want you to  _ carry _ my baby. I want to be there with you, every step of the way. I want your body to be the first home our baby ever knows. And as soon as you give me the word, I will have them transfer all the information we need right here to this ship and we can do the fertility treatments with Dr. Culber’s help in Sickbay and we can do the procedure right here in our own bedroom.”

“ _ No _ ,” Philippa hiccups but Michael presses on.

“Baby,  _ yes _ . It’s so simple that a low level science officer can do it. With just a little preparation, it wouldn’t be any different then what we already do together. There’s a...tool I can replicate, it would look almost exactly the same as the others. You and I wouldn’t be able to feel the difference.” 

“We could make love?” Philippa croaks and Michael’s laugh is as sweet and clear as a bell. 

“It can be as special or uninspired as you like.” Philippa chuckles weakly against Michael’s neck. 

“It’s never uninspired with you.” She whispers. Michael lifts Philippa the rest of the way into her lap and begins to rock slowly, a dizzying reversal of their roles from the evening before. “But it can’t,  _ I can’t _ —” Philippa begins to cry again, hard. 

“There’s nothing wrong with your body baby. Even if we couldn’t conceive, you’d be perfect. You are perfect for me in every way.” Michael presses a soft kiss to her forehead. “But reproductively speaking, our chances are good. We’d have to monitor you those first few weeks and after the second trimester you’d be grounded. They’d classify it as a slightly higher risk pregnancy, mostly because they’re still not sure what the latent effects of space-time and reality travel might be. You’d be the first person to ever do it. But we’ve done so many other firsts together that I’m confident that we can do  _ anything _ together. And if it helps, they’re confident that if implantation sticks and we keep your vitals strong and keep your stress down, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t make it full term.” A baby.  _ Their baby. _ Their second child. 

“You want to have a baby with me?” Philippa’s voice is incredulous and full of awe.

“Nothing in this universe would make me happier than to make you the mother of my children in every conceivable way.” The grin on Michael’s face is so wide that Philippa fears it will split her face in two. “I have done the impossible so many times, survived the loss of my birth family, been the first human child to be raised on Vulcan. Served in Starfleet with the greatest Captain of record. Survived the loss of my greatest friend, and then found her again on the other side of the looking glass. I have jumped through wormholes and been shot across time and space like a velocity disk. All of us here have seen things we were never meant to see, done things we were never meant to do.” Michael searches for Philippa’s face, curls a hand around her cheek, tenderly presses a kiss to her lips and exhales her next words like a litany.

“There is no greater honor than being your wife, no greater honor than being Uri’s Ayah. There would be no greater honor than making you the mother of my child,  _ again. _ ”

Michael slips off the bed and drops down to the floor on her knees before Philippa. 

“I need to know if you’re all in. If you don’t want this, I won’t ever bring it up again. The inquiries will stop. I will pull all of our files, delete the replicator patterns. I’ll jettison the research and my whole data console, right out an airlock, if that’s what you want. There is nothing you can decide that will hurt or disappoint me. But if you’re in, if you’re all in, I will work tirelessly to make this happen. I will step back from my duties, I’ll take less away missions, I’ll pick up as many loose ends around here as you need me too, and I’ll endure every tantrum, every craving—and I mean  _ every craving _ .” Michael says wiggling her eyebrows suggestively before growing serious again.

“If you want me to, I will even resign from my post as Saru’s Number One. Whatever it takes. I won’t be perfect, but I can promise you that I’ll do my damnedest to be everything that you, Uri, and this baby need for the rest of your lives. Because, I’m all in Philippa. I’m all in.” 

Philippa is not sure how this became the most romantic proposition of her life, but it has. There are no words to describe the gifts that Michael continues to give her. The ways that Michael continues to amaze her. Philippa is so, so grateful. She is grateful that she knows what love can do, grateful that she is changed by it everyday, molded and held by the hands of her wife, the hands of her daughter, the hands of this ragtag family of a crew. 

Now she need only let love change her body the way it has changed her soul. To let it round her sharp edges, to let it soften the planes of her face, to let it swell in her belly like a sacred chord. She stands out on an unnamed precipice, surveys the future below her with a cautious gaze. It feels like looking down at the world from the suspended bridge across Mount Mat Cincang. 

She climbs onto the railing, takes a deep breath and takes comfort in the fact that, without fail, Michael will be down at the bottom waiting with open arms. 

“I’m in,” Philippa breathes, the realization breaking over her like a wave. “I’m in, I’m in, I’m—” Michael surges up to meet her in a messy kiss and Philippa laughs into her mouth. 

She lets go and lets god.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> personally, i love exploring characters through the angle of pregnancy and children so i am forever a fan of stories that do the same. that being said, i actually struggled with whether or not i would follow through with my original plan of a pregnancy for philippa. i think there's merit in both potentials and i almost changed course at the last minute. in the end, however, i really thought it was important to embrace what it would mean to live in the 32nd century and allow queer characters of varying genders to have access to reproductive technology that would allow them to expand their family in whatever way felt most exciting and affirming to them because...why not? and i think it's extremely powerful for two women of color who have inherited long colonial and imperialist histories of not being able to enter into parent/motherhood on one's own terms to be able to say we want to carry a baby and just make it happen. 
> 
> michael's wedding vows are from the Old Testament, specifically The Book of Ruth, which is a fantastically queer (in every sense of the word) story that--for me--really gets at the heart of the complex but wonderfully rich chosen family relationship between our heroines that tussles with the mother/daughter dynamic that is significant in _many_ lesbian relationships. the story of naomi and ruth offers some great food for thought. and makes for some heartfelt vows. it also allows us to lean into the obvious religious imagery that influences a lot of the writers character and plot choices! i could go on, but...
> 
> thanks for coming to my TED talk 😅


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